...It’s no surprise that Gebremariam should have a lot on his mind. Since taking over as chief executive in 2011, he has been busy overseeing Vision 2025 – an ambitious 15-year strategic ­programme that calls for Ethiopian to become the largest carrier in Africa, with a $10 billion annual turnover and four hubs to cover the four corners of the continent.

These are some tough targets, but progress has been in the right direction. In 2013, Ethiopian became the largest African carrier by revenue and profit according to IATA, with revenues topping $2.3 billion – the first time in its 69 year history the Ethiopian flag carrier has overtaken rival South African Airways.

Two of its regional hubs have now been opened. One at Lome, Togo, opened in ­co-operation with ASKY Airlines – in which ­Ethiopian holds a 40% stake – covers routes and cargo markets in West Africa. Another has been recently established at the Malawian capital of Lilongwe with Malawian Airlines – in which Ethiopian holds a 49% stake – and serves destinations in the southern Africa region...

...Ethiopian’s network strategy is to feed regional African traffic to Addis Ababa and then on to its rapidly-expanding long-haul network. It now covers cities in Europe, North America, South America, Africa, the Middle East and Asia.

New routes to Shanghai, Singapore, Rio de Janeiro and Seoul have been added over the past 12 months. Flights to Manila, Tokyo and Jakarta are planned, and the carrier is studying the practicalities of establishing a base at Dublin that it could operate as a stop-off on routes to the West Coast of the USA. In the far future, Australia is also on Gebremariam’s radar...

... Under this investment-based approach, Delta ordered 30 end-of-line Airbus A321s and 10 Airbus A330-300s in September even as most airlines opted for the next-generation Airbus A320neo family and Boeing 787. It has also leased 88 used Boeing 717-200s from Southwest Airlines, adding 12 of the type as well as 15 used Boeing MD-90s to its fleet in 2013.The carrier is not without an order for next-generation aircraft. It has a firm order for 18 787-8s which it inherited from Northwest, with deliveries commencing in 2020. “They’re going to be great airplanes,” says Anderson on the 787 and its peers, including the Airbus A350 and the Boeing 737 Max family. “I just don’t want to take the manufacturers’ technical risk. My balance sheet is not equipped to take their technical risk. Once those airplanes are proven, then we’ll be in a position to be able to operate them.”He adds that the size and scope of Delta’s operation – citing the fact that the airline carries more passengers than any other, and has a high completion factor – does not “lend itself to our taking technical risk on new technologies”.A big component of Delta’s strategy is renewing its regional fleet. The leased 717s are part of a programme to remove more than 200 50-seat regional jets and replace them with larger aircraft that have lower unit costs by the end of 2015...

... Asked how he can deflect credit for Delta’s success under his leadership, Anderson says: “Well, I would say it was thriving under [Gerald] Grinstein. I think Gerry Grinstein probably did a lot more than I did. And I think Ed Bastian has done a phenomenal job as president through the whole restructuring, and Steve Gorman’s [chief operating officer] done a phenomenal job.”After naming three more executives at the airline, he says: “I can keep [going], and that’s what made Delta.”...

...Luxon feels this approach enables the carrier to embrace risks that other airlines would baulk at. “It’s about embracing risk intelligently, being prepared to make some mistakes commercially along the way, and if we are not making mistakes, we know we are not pushing it hard enough,” he says. “We won’t stop giving it a go because we fundamentally believe that we need to do things differently.”One example of the carrier’s appetite for risk is its Skycouch economy-class product, which features an extending leg rest that comes up to create a small bed-like space across three economy seats.It was launched in 2011 on the airline’s Boeing 777-300ERs and Luxon says passengers have raved about it. The product will also be fitted to 14 rows on its 787-9s that will arrive in July, and will be retrofitted on its 777-200ERs as part of larger cabin refit for those aircraft. It also recently licensed the product to China Airlines, which will fit it to its 777-300ERs.Luxon also wants to tap the growing interest in New Zealand as a leisure destination that has emerged in fast-growing economies around the Pacific. Ever the marketing man, he sees his carrier playing a role in building demand...

...Competition aside, Luxon has continued to grow and develop Air New Zealand’s ­relationships with other carriers. “The two cornerstone pieces are the Virgin Australia alliance and the ­Singapore Airlines ­arrangement, and that one is really exciting,” he says. Under the recently minted partnership with Singapore Airlines, the Kiwi carrier is planning to return to the Singapore market, and is looking forward to opening up many more connections in the near future.“Our European business is best served through our partnership with Singapore, which is a great hub carrier,” says Luxon. “It also adds 58 new destinations that New Zealanders can connect to through the Singaporean hub. It’s really exciting.”The Virgin Australia alliance sees the two carriers operate joint services on the trans-Tasman market. Air New Zealand has demonstrated how important it considers the Australian carrier to be by steadily building up a 25% ownership stake. “Our motivation for participating and investing in Virgin Australia is that it is a large connecting market, it’s adjacent to NZ, it’s growing and we want to have an efficient way to have access to that in Australia,” Luxon explains. “We ultimately believe that can be a profitable marketplace.”...

...Sixty years of existence counted for little – survival would require simplicity and humility. Several restructuring efforts had forced SAS to dismantle its empire and pare back to core elements.However, the company’s reliance on short-haul operations – around 70% of its business – meant that it could no longer sustain its heavy cost base in the face of budget carriers. On 12 November 2012 the company laid out the 4XNG restructuring programme which would overhaul these costs, and the price its workers – particularly its flightcrews – needed to pay if SAS was to live.“It’s hard to change, hard to take benefits from people and change people’s lives,” says Gustafson. “We had to take it all the way to the cliff.”SAS was out of options, and Gustafson recalls the “enormous responsibility” of finding a way through the crisis.Although the talks in Copenhagen worryingly edged past their deadline, a final agreement with eight unions on 19 November threw SAS a rope with which it could begin to pull itself out of the darkest hole in its history.The company which emerged is a lighter, leaner operation. SAS is no longer a diverse group but a business focused on a single carrier – following the integration of Scandinavian Airlines and Blue1 – aiming ultimately to employ 9,000 personnel – less than one-third of its workforce in 2001.Norwegian regional operator Wideroe has been sold, along with most of SAS’s third-party airline interests, and the company is in the process of divesting its ground-handling division...

Y sobre el rediseño de su flota y apuesta por el longhaul:

...SAS has a 30% share of intercontinental traffic from Scandinavia. It heavily relies on Star to supplement its long-haul operation, particularly to North America, but the launch last year of its much-postponed San Francisco service – more than a decade after it was originally unveiled – finally opened a long-awaited Scandinavian link to the US west coast.“Our long-haul is doing well for us,” says Gustafson. “That’s not always been the case.”SAS’s investment strategy includes renewing its long-haul fleet, initially with four Airbus A330-300s in 2015-2016 before it introduces the first of eight A350-900s in 2018. The airline is modernising the passenger cabins of its current fleet with new seats, including flat-beds in business class.Transformation of the short-haul fleet will start in 2016 with the delivery of the re-engined A320neo, 30 of which will be brought into the carrier by the end of 2019.SAS is a consolidated airline, a situation forced upon it by the extensive Scandinavian geography – stretching from the Arctic to the Baltic – combined with a sparse population of 20 million across Sweden, Norway and Denmark. Decentralisation of the airline into autonomous operations between the three states was attempted in 2004, only to be reversed in 2009....

...Effecting that change was not easy, Rovinescu recalls. He uses the analogy of a Rubik’s cube to describe the challenge: the airline was required to undertake several projects that depended on one another – raising financing from the capital markets, developing relationships with the government and suppliers, and stabilising labour while negotiating new contracts, to name a few.“It was not something you could tackle successively; it was something that needed to be tackled simultaneously,” he recalls.When Rovinescu started as chief executive on 1 April 2009, the carrier had a C$3.2 billion pension deficit while facing a need to re-negotiate labour contracts with several major employee groups. The airline also needed to raise liquidity from the capital markets.To solve these, Rovinescu identified four tasks for the airline to focus on: cost transformation, international expansion, culture change and customer engagement. The narrative has changed dramatically in the past five years...

...The airline received the first of 37 787s on 20 May and has six 787-8s scheduled for delivery in the year. When Air Canada originally placed its 787 order in April 2005, it planned to take delivery of its first aircraft in 2010.The carrier has ordered 15 787-8s and 22 of the -9 variant, which will be delivered from July 2015. The airline plans to receive the three-cabin aircraft through 2019 and expects the 787s to provide a 29% lower CASM compared with the Boeing 767-300ER aircraft it will replace on certain long-haul routes.As the 787s enter the fleet, those 767s are being transitioned to the Rouge banner. The leisure airline plans to operate as many as 20 767s and 30 Airbus A319s under a lower cost structure than they would in the mainline fleet, the airline has said.The airline’s path to receiving its Dreamliners was long, as the various issues that blighted the aircraft since the order almost a decade ago delayed deliveries by four years. But the all-new twinjet was worth the wait, says Rovinescu.“We’re disappointed and Boeing knows we’re disappointed, both by the delays and by the issues around the battery and other issues they’ve had, says Rovinescu. “However, our expectation is that the 787 will be a great airplane. Whenever you develop a game-changing aircraft like that, you are going to have issues.”...

...That picture has changed, however, with the addition to the group of Austrian Airlines, Brussels Airlines, Germanwings and Eurowings. “We have other airlines operating to the same markets or operating on the same itineraries,” says Hohmeister. “We have to do more co-ordination. Otherwise, we do not get the added value out of the consolidation.”

He draws an analogy with a musical ensemble playing a concerto: “Having somebody who is playing the pipe or the guitar or the piano the most professional he can... It has to be somehow co-ordinated to have really good music out of that, although each individual is the best.”

Warming to his theme, he adds: “We might be the best piano player for the Swiss market, but being the best piano player, in my view, is not enough anymore.

“I also have to see how can I participate in Lufthansa Group and this big concerto so that the customer outside, in all segments, has the best offer...

...Among the aircraft assets scheduled to join the Swiss inventory – currently made up of some 90 aircraft, five of them wet-leased – are six Boeing 777-300ERs and 30 Bombardier CSeries CS100 airliners.

For long-term development of the fleet, the Airbus A350-900 will be considered against the 777-300ER, Hohmeister says.

“This is something we have under investigation right now, and of course we always do some comparison,” he says, adding: “I do not care what kind of aircraft we are flying as long as it is the best in terms of return on investment.”

What is certain is that days are numbered for one particular long-haul type: “It is clear we have to get out of the A340-300 fleet,” Hohmeister says.

For narrowbody fleet renewal, meanwhile, Swiss had been scheduled to receive its first CS100 this year. When this was delayed a year, the airline was forced to extend the maintenance cycles of its 14 owned and six leased BAE Systems Avro regional jets.

In a worst-case scenario the leases could be extended, but upkeep of the jets would cause headaches. “This aircraft is quite old... and we have to invest quite a lot of money for a small aircraft to be state of the art,” says Hohmeister. “The question is: for an aircraft where you know it will leave the fleet in the next 12 to 18 months, how much does it make sense to invest so much?”

An alternative type could be leased in, with the costs trading off against savings in maintenance costs. Either way, “capacity-wise, it’s not an issue: we will not have to cancel flights because the Bombardier aircraft is delayed”, says Hohmeister...

...In the six years since then, Azul has grown to become Brazil’s third-biggest carrier, with a market share of 25% behind TAM and Gol – the duopoly that had dominated Brazil’s domestic air service market before Azul’s entrance. Azul’s rise is testimony to its success in carving out a niche for itself – the airline uses Embraer E-Jets and ATR turboprops to predominantly serve secondary markets in Brazil, which TAM and Gol’s narrowbody aircraft cannot operate to profitably.

“Seventy percent of our market is exclusive,” points out Neeleman. “We are growing a lot of markets that did not have air service before.”

Azul reinforced its position when it announced plans to acquire Trip in 2012. The two airlines achieved a single AOC earlier this year and serve a combined 102 destinations with a fleet of more than 140 aircraft. The Trip acquisition gained Azul strategic landing rights at São Paulo Guarulhos and Rio de Janeiro Santos Dumont airports, and solidified its position in Belo Horizonte, one of Brazil’s largest cities.

With a strong network at home, Azul is on the verge of its next major step – expanding overseas. In December, the carrier will launch its inaugural US service with nonstop flights from Viracopos-Campinas International airport to Fort Lauderdale and Orlando with the A330s. In mid-2015 it will begin flights to New York JFK...

...With the planned flights to Fort Lauderdale and Orlando – both focus cities in JetBlue’s network – it is natural to ask Neeleman if Azul plans to partner the New York-based carrier he founded, and he acknowledges it would “make a lot of sense”. “That’s not the primary focus for us. [But] once we get flying, we will be able to set something up with them.”

On a broader scale, Neeleman says that joining an airline alliance is “not something we will rule out”. But he makes it clear that Azul plans to grow unimpeded, regardless.

While there are clear similarities with his experience in setting up JetBlue, Neeleman sees a bigger opportunity in Brazil. “The challenges are big in Brazil. JetBlue has 5% of the US market. Azul, in terms of revenue, has 25% of Brazil already. That number is going to increase with our international flights.”

If anything, his time at JetBlue has taught him one thing: think big. Referring to JetBlue’s past operational challenges, Neeleman says: “We started as a much smaller airline and had to grow into the systems. It’s hard to replace them as you get big.” Neeleman stepped down from the chief executive position at JetBlue in May 2007, months after the carrier’s network collapsed during a severe storm. The crisis was a public relations disaster for JetBlue, and cost the carrier $30 million...